MOChassid

The rambling thoughts of a Modern Orthodox Chassid (whatever that means).
Contact me at emansouth @ aol.com

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Boring Alert

The market I'm involved in is, shall we say, very volatile these days. Hence, it is taking up virtually all of my psychic energy. Consequently, the erudite and thoughtful posts that readers are used to seeing in this space will likely be few and far between.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Bad Influence

It's hard enough raising a two-year old at our advanced ages without having to deal with a grandson who is a bad influence. Thanks to Shmuel, The Toddler has learned to turn on the dishwasher and hang out in the shower, closing and opening the shower door. What else does he have up his sleeve?

This year's troubled Tour de France was partially redeemed by a thrilling 19th stage time trial. Levi Leipheimer, the overall third place rider, blew away the filed with a spectacular ride (average speed of 53 kph) and came within 8 seconds of overtaking Cadel Evans. Evans, in turn, came within 23 seconds of overtaking Alberto Contador, the yellow jersey. Contador rode the time trial of his life to barely hang on.

With all the problems that the Tour had, one senses that a sea change is taking place. It is becoming very clear, even to the riders, that they must clean up the sport and that now is the time to do it.

In any event, now that the ride is over, there is once more no use for the country of France for the next 49 weeks.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Mazal Tov "Judah"

This morning Judah put on tefilin for the first time. It is heard to believe that he is almost bar mitzvah; he first joined our family when he was 5.

Although Judah has not yet found a foster home, he has been "adopted" by an entire community and many of the amazing people who have looked after him for the past two years were in attendance this morning.

Judah is an inspiration to all who know him. His strength, persistence and emunah in the face of unimaginable adversity is beyond comprehension. We all wonder how we would have reacted to circumstances as difficult as his.

We are looking forward to his bar mitzvah is a few weeks and we continue to daven that he will find a permanent home soon.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Aron Razel will be completing the final mix of the new CD early next week. We are working hard on the cover art and the insert. If all goes well, it will be ready before the chagim.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to distribute a marketing CD containing one of the tunes and distributing it to friends and colleagues. If I can figure out how, (and figure out the royalty implications), I will post it here as well.

I still can't say much more. The CD will consist of 10 songs and feature Aron Razel, Chaim Dovid and Shlomo Katz. Aron wrote the arrangements and did the heavy lifting in what was a very collaborative effort among the musicians. Fortunately, there is no musical involvement whatsoever by MoC. I have not yet heard a decent mix but I'm excited by what I did hear (an extremely rough version of 9 of the songs). We'll soon see (or hear).

My gym has finally replaced the ancient scale in the men's locker room with a digital model. The old scale always annoyed me because it was never calibrated right. No matter how many times I told management, it was never accurate. It was always a few pounds heavy.

My weight fluctuates within a very small band depending on the season. In the winter I can go up to as high as 136 and in the summer I usually go down to 132. During the Alyn bike ride I can go down as far as 128. Since I knew it was off, I never really cared what the scale said; I was more interested in my relative weight. The scale was consistently high so that worked.

Sure enough, when I tried it yesterday, the digital scale came in exactly how I thought it should.

On the subject of scales, and being a keen observer of human beings, I noticed as a member of gyms for the past twenty years that anyone who was overweight would immediately push the scale bars back to zero after weighing himself while skinny people did not. Will overweight people now go to the trouble of pressing the reset button on the digital scale? Inquiring minds want to know.

...in the Tour de France would be for Cadel Evans to overtake Alberto Contador in the time trial and take the Yellow Jersey.

Contador has ridden like a champion; Evans has repeatedly come up short. Discovery battled Rasmussen, not Evans. Had he been their prey all along, they would have buried him.

The good news is that this is unlikely to happen. First, Evans beat Contador by 1:04 the first time trial and Contador has a lead of almost two minutes. Second, Contador goes last, just after Evans. He will be able to hear exactly what Evans' time splits are and will be able to ride accordingly. That is a huge advantage.

The greatest and hardest sporting event of all, the Tour de France, has been knocked cold by the ouster of the race leader, Michael Rasmussen, by his team Rabobank, for lying to them about his whereabouts last month while training. He missed three mandatory out-of-race drug tests and told his team that he was in Mexico when, in fact, he was training in Italy. (Ironically, he has passed 17 drug tests during the Tour itself).

This on the heals of the ouster of two other riders, including the pre-race favorite (and winner of two stages).

This is an unmitigated disaster, coming, as it does, a year after Floyd Landis was stripped of his title for testing positive for Testosterone in last year's Tour.

I don't know what to make of this. On the road itself, this year's race has been nothing short of amazing. Rasmussen himself was heroic, fighting off rellentless attacks by Alberto Contador and Team Discovery. The other prominent rider who was expelled, Vinokourov, was also heroic, winning two stages after falling in an earlier stage and and receiving 45 stitches to his knees. And the emergence of an astonishing young rider, the aforementioned Contador (who is now the race leader) has been exciting and refreshing. Finally, the brilliant (albeit unsuccessful) strategy of Team Discovery has been compelling.

I am saddened that the reputation of this great event has been so damaged. As a rider, I continue to be in awe of the phenomenal ability and strength of these riders who cover massive amounts of the most difficult terrain for three weeks straight. I am at a loss.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

I have absolutely nothing to say right now. I am drawing a blank. I could write about sports but no one is really interested. I had a lot of thoughts about Tisha B'Av but I'm not in the mood anymore. I am crazy busy at work so I can't put in the time to think.

Friday, July 20, 2007

This has been a fascinating tour. There are still about 9 riders who can seriously contend for the yellow jersey. Tomorrow is the first time trial and the results promise to finally shake out the field of general contenders. I intend to watch the replay after Shabbos and I don't want anyone telling me about the results before that. (Not that anyone in my shul cares one hoot about the Tour de France or would know anything about it during Shabbos even if they did).

Yesterday's stage was one of the most bizzare I've ever seen. For reasons that I still don't understand, one of the teams decided to put the hammer down on a flat stage. They rode at the head of the pelaton for 90 miles in a crosswind at an average speed of 30 mph. While they managed to split the pelaton in two and ended the chances of one of the top contenders (he got caught by surprise and was unable to catch up to the lead group; he ended up losing over 3 minutes), I don't think that was their goal. In fact, I don't know what their goal was other than to wear themselves out.

Finally, I think that Team Discovery is running a very interesting tactical race. With the exception of one Alpine stage, we've hardly heard from them. They have done almost no hard work. Instead, they've been content to let their two leading riders go with the flow, preserving their energies for the time trials and next week's brutal mountain stages. Discovery also has two accomplished mountain riders to support their two possible general contenders. We will see if this strategy will work.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Julio Franco Lives

To my utter astonishment, the Atlanta Braves have signed Julio Franco, the 49 year-old pinch-(not)-hitter whom the Mets just released. Franco was hitting .200 for the Mets and is too old to tie his own shoe laces never mind play the field. He is the only major leaguer who is a full-fledged member of AARP.

It must be that the Braves are nostalgic for the only player who has played for the Boston Braves, the Milwaukee Braves and now the Atlanta Braves.

The comment thread on this post does a better job of making my point than I did on my last post.

It is so easy to fall into meaningless narishkeit. In this case it's the length of knee socks for 8 year olds. It could easily be another goofy issue that entirely misses the point. Sadly, in so many cases Chariedi institutions are being led by people who are in a race to show that they are the most "frum". This is what I meant by missing the forest for the trees.

Yet, on the other side, there is a sense of cognitive dissonance. As if freely engaging the secular world is not a huge challenge. Anyone who is engaged in the secular world knows that this is simply not true. It is a huge avodah to straddle that line.

Bringing up normal children is therefore no less challenging. Bringing them up to recognize the narishkeit, to separate the wheat from the chafe, to focus on what's real rather than what's small, to engage in the world around us while at the same time recognizing the dangers in that world, is no small task.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

On Being Normal

It seems to me that the main avodah of an Orthodox Jewish parent is to raise normal children. This is easier said than done.

If you are a halachic MO, it is very challenging to walk the fine line of modernity while still raising a G-d-fearing child. The influences of popular culture are so base and unrefined these days that trying to straddle that line becomes increasingly more difficult.

On the other hand, the Chareidi world has largely lost its way. With their race to Chumrahland, they are missing the forest for the trees. There is little spirituality; just rote observance. With their emphasis on learning full-time over work (whether one has the kishronos or not), they are creating an unsustainable paradigm that will one day soon blow up.

So what's the answer?

There are no easy answers. There are certainly no easy communal answers. AInstead, a parent has to worry about his or her own children. A parent has to guide his or her child through the minefield of this way of life, maintaining an environment of reasonableness and normality. One must make careful choices about where to send children to school and camp, and how to behave at home, at work and at shul.

The Tour de France this year is shaping up to be fascinating. With no real favorite, very interesting stages have taken place with some very unexpected results.

The one thing that continues to amaze me is the threshhold for pain that the riders display. Besides riding 5 hours a day, sometimes on incredibly difficult terrain, many of them do it with injuries that would leave most of us recuperating in bed.

One rider crashed on Thursday. Despite nasty cuts in both knees and a huge bruise on his tush, he finished the 130 mile stage. Moreover, he got back on his bike the next three days and completed two of the most challenging stages of the tour, deep into the Alps.

Whether or not these guys are doing 'roids, it is still amazing to behold.

Think about it. You drive between 4 and 10 hours on a Sunday so that you can spend a few hours with your kids and drop off some junk that they certainly don't need.

And, kids fall into two major categories. Those that have no real interest in seeing you and those who were doing fine but now get ridiculously homesick once you leave.

Yesterday, we drove for a total of about 6.5 hours and stayed in camp for two hours to visit OYS. OYS, a junior counselor, was busy dealing with his campers' parents so two hours was about the right amount of time.

In the meantime, we got to watch (or listen, depending where you sat) to Elmopallooza twice and listen to an Uncle Moishy CD about 4,000 times.

The good news is that we are getting close to the day when we will no longer have to go to camp on visiting day. (We have a few years before we have to worry about The Toddler. In any event, I think we will choose her camps based on whether or not they have visiting days).

Friday, July 13, 2007

Dangerous Roads

I rode my bike out to Point Lookout at about 7:30 this morning. My office is moving around the corner so I didn't go in today.

On two different occasions, I was almost hit by cars making left turns. The first one on my way back, in Long Beach. The dude just wasn't looking. He was trying to beat the oncoming cars and didn't see me (even though I was dressed in a bright yellow shirt). I swerved and managed to avoid him.

The second incident was in Lawrence, on Washington Avenue. I had stopped at a traffic light and started crossing Broadway when the light turned green. There, a woman (whom I know), started making a left, again, hoping to beat oncoming traffic. And, she was talking on a cell phone which was in her left hand. She saw me in time and stopped short.

Two points. It's dangerous on the roads. Many drivers are careless and distracted. So,

WEAR A HELMET WHEN YOU RIDE A BIKE. MAKE SURE IT FITS.(many helmets that I see are ill-fitting or placed incorrectly. A helmet that is lodged in the back of one's head is useless.) MAKE SURE YOUR KIDS WEAR HELMETS.

DON'T RIDE WITH iPODS! Just like you wouldn't drive a car wearing an iPod, kal v'chomer you shouldn't ride a bike. You need to pay attention attention at all time and eliminating your sense of hearing is idiotic.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

The Problem With Modern Orthodoxy

It occurred to me during one of my recent walks from Penn Station to work that the fundamental problem with Modern Orthodoxy is Modernity. In theory, MO could work; in today's reality, it's very difficult. Stated simply: "Leave it To Beaver" vs. "Fill in the blank with virtually any sitcom or reality show today".

I know this is no great chiddush but it became very clear during my recent walk. And, don't get me wrong; the Chareidi world is a huge mess also so I am no apologist for them.

I am in the middle of moving offices so I don't have time right now to expand, but I will next week.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

This week marks the second anniversary of when the Toddler joined our family. This is the second in a series of posts I hope to write about my impressions to mark that anniversary.

Given our advanced ages (relatively speaking), we've been fortunate that the Toddler has been a very easy baby, BH. She started sleeping through the night at a relatively young age and has continued to do so until today. She goes to sleep easily. She still takes a long afternoon nap. She is a somewhat picky, but good, eater. She enjoys her bath. She is very engaged and has a great sense of humor. She is very friendly and gets along well with just about everybody.

And then she turned two.

The Toddler is turning out to be very strong-willed. She has a fierce temper. She expects things to be done her way and is prepared to throw fits (or food) if they are not. In other words, she just turned two.

This behavior, of course, presents quite a challenge and requires a lot of self control and discipline. MHW is very good at this. I am not so I have to work at it constantly. Remember, I am old enough to be a grandfather (I am a grandfather!) and I have to stop myself from acting like one.

On Shabbos, after one of The Toddler's hissy-fits, MHW said to me: "I think if we can get through the next two years, we'll be fine." I thought that was one of the funniest lines I had ever heard but MHW was serious.

We've been through this before with our other kids (in very different ways and to different degrees) but that was many years ago, when we were young. It just seems a lot harder at our ages.

Indeed, of all the things that worry me about raising The Toddler, our ages worry me the most. MHW is right about the next couple of years; we can and will get through them with a lot of love, patience and self control. I worry more about the years to come. How is The Toddler going to relate to parents who are as old as most people's grandparents? (Teenagers already think their parents are pre-historic).

It's good, I suppose, that for alter cockers, we are in pretty good shape and on the "young" side (especially MHW). I guess we have a lot of incentive to keep it that way.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

That is a question that I often think about. When I call MHW on her cell, the chances of her picking up the phone are about one is four. And that's when she recognizes who is calling!

Frequently, MHW is working and won't answer the phone. Often the phone is in her bag and she won't even hear it. This time, even though she was in the middle of shopping in the local drug store, she heard the phone, took it out of her bag, and answered it even though she didn't recognize the number.

The phone call, of course, changed our lives forever. It was Ohel calling, desperately trying to place a ten week old baby girl. We were third on their list and had MHW not answered the phone and immediately agreed to take the baby (a reaction that was completely uncharacteristic of her usual methodical decision making process), they would have gone on to the next family.

(Indeed, as we discovered later, the person whom they had called second, but who needed to discuss it with her husband, was calling back to say yes at the very moment that Ohel was talking to MHW).

This week marks the second anniversary of that call. It is hard to believe. Our lives have been turned upside down and blessed and everything has changed because MHW answered her cell phone.

I will try to put down my feelings and impressions over the next couple of days about The Toddler's two year anniversary with the MoC family.

If you are going to ride a bike seriously, one of the first things you need to learn is how to change a flat. Flats happen no matter what precautions you take. You can have Kevlar tires and keep the air pressure appropriately high, you will still get flat tires from time to time.

When I started, it would take me at least a half hour, sometimes more, to change a flat. I dreaded flats. Everything was difficult. Getting the tire off the rim, getting the new tube to stay in the tire, and, especially, getting the tire back onto the rim.

Last night I was working on my bike, adding a carbon water cage (less than 25 grams), when I noticed my rear tire was flat.

I changed the tire in 14 minutes from start to finish. While not exactly Bruce from Chicago (penultimate paragraph), I was pretty proud given my general lack of facility with anything mechanical.

While I still don't look forward to flats, at least I no longer worry about them.

Monday, July 09, 2007

Not the Berditchev

The holy Rebbe from Berditchev, Reb Levi Yitzchak ben Sarah Sasha, ztk'l, also known by the name of his sefer, Kedushas Levi, was known as the defense attorney of the Jewish people. He was known to frequently argue with the Master of the Universe over His mistreatment of the Jewish people. He was also known to judge Jews in a favorable way even in the most outrageous situations.

I am not the Kedushas Levi. I tend to judge Jews harshly. This tendency was exacerbated by my three years as chairman of the board of a major Jewish school and six years as president of a growing shul.

I am not proud of this midah, I'm just reprting the truth. (MHW, on the other hand, is right up there with the Rebbe in her proclivity to ignore all evidence and judge people favorably no matter what).

The latest example occurred Friday. I am the backup to the backup mikvah guy at my shul. Since both the mikvah guy and his backup were away for Shabbos, it was my job to close the mikvah, run the filter and tidy it up prior to Shabbos (Although during the week it is solely a men's mikvah, on Friday nights the mikvah is used by women).

When I got there, I found about ten towels on the floor of the mikvah rather than in the laundry bin. Then I saw a few pieces of dental floss on the floor.

The Kedushas Levi would have walked out of the mikvah thinking, "How great are the Jews? Men go to the mikvah and are so excited about the coming of Shabbos that they forget all about their towels and leave them on the floor. And men are so interested in being completely clean before going into the mikvah that they even floss their teeth!. Gevaldig!".

I, on the other hand, thought: "What slobs. Can't these guys pick up their own towels and throw them in the laundry bin? Would they do this at home? And dental floss? Disgusting. What are people doing flossing in the mikvah in the first place? It isn't a bathroom, it's a mikvah. Yechh. And, if you're going to floss, can't you at least take care to throw it away? Really gross."

This attitude is only one of many reasons that I will never have the letters "ztk'l" following my name after 120 years.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Tattoos

We've all seen the artists at various tourist traps enticing people, often couples, to have themselves caricatured. And, if your experience is like mine, 99% of the time the art work, usually pastels, bears absolutely no resemblance to the people posing. (This should not come as a surprise since, if you think about it, if the artists had any real talent they would be sitting on street corners drawing pictures for $10 a pop).

But people keep paying for these drawings because, what the heck, their just a few bucks and what do you have to lose.

What does all this have to do with tattoos?

Tattoos amaze me. I have difficulty processing the idea that anyone would want something indelibly painted on his or her body, particularly in a place that is in public view. I just don't get it. (The only tattoos I can even begin to understand are those very small ones that people apparently place in intimate areas that no one but their partners can see and little ones on ankles. I once had a female colleague who was an accomplished runner. She had a small wing tatoo right above her ankle. I had to admit that I thought it was pretty cool).

But it's even worse. It would be one thing if the tattoo artists were all Michelangelos. But really. There are probably thousands of tattoo "artists" around the U.S. How many of them do you think are truly gifted? How many are really like the street artist trying to pay the rent.

Yet hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people allow these tattoo artists to paint their bodies. Mind boggling.

And, indeed, in my walks to and from the train station, I am subjected on a daily basis to some truly atrocious looking tattoos. Astonishingly horrible to biblical proportions.

(I can only assume that the recipients of these awful tattoos were drunk when they were done, or too poor to afford anything but the neighborhood hack).

And then, of course, there are the dopes who have their boyfriend/girlfriend's name tattooed on their bodies. Yeah, that's pretty smart! Not only are most of the tattoos ugly, they are usually outdated within months.

I recently read an article in a local paper that noted that hundreds of thousands of people pay exorbitant sums (and undergo hours of painful procedures) to have tattoos removed.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

MHW and I are engaged in a war of wills with The Toddler. The issue. Her pacifier. Until now she has been content chewing on it while in her crib. Sometimes we'd let her have it if we were in the car for a very long time.

Recently, she started asking for it all the time. With her new and improved language, she can be quite a sympathetic character: "I need pac-i-fi-er" while touching her chest.

This is one of those times when big will power is needed. Luckily, MHW has that in abundance. I just get in line and follow her lead. As MHW's explained to me, if we hold the line now, TT will get over this phase in a matter of days or a couple of weeks. But, if we give in now, we will have to deal with this for years. Using a pacifier is bad for her bite and bad for language development. And getting it away from her later will be brutal.

This is similar to our bedroom policy. We have never permitted any of our kids to sleep in our beds (while we were in them). This was an absolute rule that could not be violated. If one of the kids felt it necessary to be near us in the middle of the night, he or she could come into the room with his or her pillow and blanket and sleep on the carpet next to our bed.

I know couples who have not had a peaceful night's sleep in years because their kids share their beds (Indeed, one of my co-workers, an otherwise intelligent women, has had her three year old in her bed for almost two years; she now finds breaking her daughter of that habit impossible).

So, we will have to endure a couple of weeks of whining, feeling sad and guilty, but we know what we are doing is better for us and, more importantly, better for TT, in the long run.

I frequently walk into the bais medrash at 6 a.m. to find that it is as cold as a meat locker. The bais medrash has it's own thermostat which is accesible to everyone. (It used to have a locked cover but that became a big controversy when the person with the key wasn't around and the bais medrash was at 100 degrees).

This morning I was the first into the bais and the temparature was set at 68 degrees. This annoyed me no end. It means that someone set the temparature to that level last night. It also means that the last person out of the bais medrash didn't bother to raise the temparture (I can't really get down on whoever that was; they may not have even known what to do).

I wonder at what temparature the person set his own home thermostat. I bet it isn't 68 degrees.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

The more I see, the more I appreciate the greatness of this country. And I have tremendous hakoras hatov.

The U.S., with all of its issues, it is a light in a world of deception and darkness. It is the only place, other than Israel, where Jews can feel remotely comfortable. It is the one country that, to some degree, has not totally deluded itself as to the threat posed by Islam. It is one of the only places where hard work is rewarded and the merit system still largely prevails.

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Decisions II

As I have noted previously, I am required to make important decisions at work virtually every day. Some of the things I decide can actually have an impact on the market I'm involved in. Yet, when it comes to making decisions at home, like most guys I know, I'm lost.

MHW just called me to tell me that we've been invited for Shabbos lunch. Issue is, we'd been discussing having company ourselves. MHW called to ask, (i) had I said anything our intended guests (of course not), and (ii) what did I think we should do.

She then started to explain the benefits of each option as well as the problems. She explained how it's good because OOD is going away for Shabbos, or it's bad because OYD might sleep at my mother in law's house...or something like that. Truthfully, my eyes glazed over. It was too confusing. I can't deal with these things.

(This must be how MHW feels when I start talking about work).

At the end, and as usual, I begged off and asked MHW to decide because whatever she decided was ok by me.

Very often on my frequent business trips, I will wind down after a busy day by watching Sportscenter on ESPN or a ball game that might be on TV. This works well for my domestic trips but breaks down almost entirely when I am overseas.

Outside the U.S., one is likely to have three or four sports stations on the hotel's TV and all of them will usually be showing some dreadful soccer game. If not soccer, it might be a show about soccer. Or, you might see cricket. If not cricket, motorcross, beach volleyball or Formula 1 racing (whih makes NASCAR seem like the Superbowl).

(The only exceptions to this reality occur during major tennis tournaments or the Tour de France. And, in Canada, there will be six hockey games or five shows about hockey).

There is no equivalent to Sportscenter that addresses any sport worth talking about.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

MoC 1, Bird 0

I had a death struggle with a bird this morning and, thankfully for MoC fans, I won.

Actually, a couple of birds were dive-bombing on Central Avenue at around 6:15 a.m. this morning and one of them had the misfortune of getting in the way of me and my bike. Hit me square in the left shoulder. Bounced right off. I was doing 18 mph and the bird was going pretty fast in the opposite direction. I know there's some kind of formula that calculates the speed when two objects going in opposite directions collide. What happened, l'maisa, is that one of them, to wit, the bird, entered the world of truth, and one of them, to wit, MoC, kept riding to Point Lookout as if nothing happened.

I have now killed a squirrel and a bird and countless insects while riding my bike. I am the malach hamaves of riders.